Eleven migrants die, dozens missing after shipping accident in the Mediterranean

Rome: According to a German aid organization and the Italian coast guard, eleven migrants died and dozens were reported missing on Monday after two shipping accidents off the southern coast of Italy.

The German aid organization RESQSHIP, which operates the rescue ship Nadir, said it had rescued 51 people from a sinking wooden boat, including two unconscious people, and found ten bodies trapped in the lower deck of the ship.

“Our thoughts are with their families. We are angry and sad,” said X.

RESQSHIP did not provide details about where or when the rescue operation took place, but according to tracking service marinetraffic.com, the Nadir was off the eastern Tunisian port city of Sfax on Monday.

The Italian coast guard also said it was searching for an unknown number of missing migrants after a sailing boat was shipwrecked about 220 kilometers east of the southern region of Calabria.

It was said the partially sunken boat, which is believed to have set off from a Turkish port, was first discovered by a French boat in international waters where Italian and Greek search and rescue zones overlap.

The French boat picked up 12 survivors, who were transferred to a cargo ship and then to an Italian coast guard patrol. One died shortly after the group was brought ashore in Calabria.

Italian public broadcaster RAI said it believed “at least 50” migrants were missing, while veteran migration journalist Sergio Scandura wrote on X that at least 64 people were missing. He said there were Afghans, Iranians and Iraqi Kurds on the sailboat.

According to the United Nations International Organization for Migration, more than 23,500 migrants have died or disappeared in the central Mediterranean since 2014, making it one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world.

At the beginning of the month, eleven bodies were recovered from the sea off the coast of Libya.